


I'll Build Us With My Own Hands

by Unosarta



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Avengers Vol. 1 (1963), Established Relationship, M/M, PTSD, Poverty, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23911075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unosarta/pseuds/Unosarta
Summary: Steve Rogers hates receiving gifts. Tony Stark loves giving gifts. Their relationship is a recipe for disaster.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 240





	I'll Build Us With My Own Hands

**Author's Note:**

> As is often the case with these short fics, the timeline is mostly nebulous. I like to imagine that this is sometime early on, when it's just Steve and Tony living in the mansion, but obviously before Avengers #16 and Tony leaving the team with Hank, Jan, and Thor.

Tony Stark is holding keys in his hands. He’s holding keys in his hands and looking at Steve with a kind of frail, fragile expectancy that says that what Steve does with them will matter very, very much to him.

It’s quickly covered by a warm grin, of course.

Steve scrubs his hand across his face. “Tony…”

* * *

Steve hates gifts more than anything. Giving them is frightening, the knowledge that your efforts - more importantly, your money - could be wasted on disappointment. Receiving them… receiving them is a hell not worth contemplating.

Arnie’s protection is a gift that makes Steve feel a determined hope, that maybe he’s not alone in this. His mother’s kindness is a gift that frightens him with how much he wants it.

But all gifts are lost eventually.

First his mother dies, TB, and Steve thinks, _I would take a thousand cruelties if it could bring her back_. No kindness could save him the pain of its loss.

He stays with the Rothsteins, and that is a gift too. Steve thinks, in his grief, that maybe he doesn’t deserve it here. But in his heart of hearts, the truth is that he is deathly afraid of losing this precious thing. Like he lost the only other thing that matters to him.

In high school, when Arnie drifts away and they don’t speak, when Steve moves out and begins to draw for the WPA, his thoughts crystallize into perfect understanding: all gifts are lost eventually.

Even - especially - the ones we treasure most.

If you want something to last, you have to build it with your hands. A gift will always be a mercy, but that means relying on people who will leave you, or hurt you, or die. But a job, a house, someone to care for? These are things they cannot so easily take away from you.

It’s easier to build yourself a life where you don’t need to rely on mercies.

* * *

“I don’t… I can’t… Tony, this is too much,” Steve chokes out, unable to say the words echoing in his head. _I could never build this with my hands. This too is a mercy._

Tony looks confused. “It’s not a big deal, Steve. I know you loved your old motorcycle, during the war, I just wanted to give you something like it. It’s been six months - I thought, maybe, I could give you something…”

He moves forward, rubbing a soft hand on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve is glad that this, at least, isn’t a mercy to him. He and Tony had built this - what they had - together, with their own hands.

He leans into the touch, smiles gratefully at Tony, feels his heart lighten at the smile he receives in turn. Feels his gut stab as he looks past Tony to see the beautiful - too beautiful - motorcycle behind him.

* * *

It’s not just a delusion of martyrdom, an inkling of “I don’t deserve this.” Steve thinks it would be easier if it was, if he didn’t think he could deserve kindness.

It’s a certainty, a knowledge still in his chest, nestled next to his heart, right next to his own name. _Steve Rogers. Everyone leaves._

He learned his lesson, with Arnie, but he didn’t get the chance to put his knowledge in motion until the Invaders. But when he did, he understood it with surety that overwhelmed him.

_If you want something to last, you must build it with your own hands._ He built the Invaders, he pieced them together with a fierce determination that said “I will not lose this family too.”

And they did last. When Steve went down in the Atlantic, he had no regrets about that. Sure, he didn’t want Bucky there, but this is just about how he would picture it to go. He’d die fighting, and maybe if he was good enough, he would get to see his mother again.

When he wakes, to a robotic man and his friends, he takes a shuddering breath and thinks, _is this a mercy or a punishment?_ He’s not sure what the difference is.

* * *

“I know that you don’t - that you aren’t comfortable with extravagant things. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to give them to you!” Tony says, interrupting whatever Steve had opened his mouth to interject with. “I want to give you the world. But, I know it makes you feel uncomfortable. Like you’re in my debt.”

Steve has to hold back the bitter laugh that ripples out from his stomach. _In my debt_. Tony had no idea what this was.

* * *

Steve has come to see the mercies, the gifts, like portents of doom. If he accepts them, even one, he is opening himself up to a hope that can never be true.

He might allow himself to believe “Tony can take care of me,” or “Tony loves me,” or “Tony will never leave me.”

But he knows too well, far too well, that these things are not true.

If he opens himself up to hope instead of focusing on the things he can build, piece by piece, his hands in the loam, then he opens himself up to sheer and utter destruction.

Poverty is a thing that clings to you. It tells you things like, “you don’t deserve their help,” and “you should work your way out of this,” and “if you can’t keep going, then you deserve to die.”

But you can shrug those words off, if you’re careful. You can’t shrug off the lessons it teaches you. “Everything is ephemeral,” and “you never know when disaster will strike,” and “everyone leaves.”

It’s possible to shrug off the words, because you can convince yourself, “I’m different,” or “that’s bullshit,” or “I can’t, even if I wanted to.”

But there is a certainty that comes from evictions and starvation hounding your steps; a constant, shrieking hypervigilance; and the terrible knowledge of history. Seeing what happens to those you love, to your friends, to your community; it teaches you these lessons indelibly.

Money might not buy happiness, but it can buy the stability necessary for joy to grow.

* * *

“That’s not - that’s not it at all,” Steve says, shaking his head.

“Then what is it, Steve?” Tony asks, his voice pleading. “I just want to make you happy. I just want to give you something.”

“Happiness isn’t something you can give, Tony,” Steve says, his voice tired and sad.

* * *

The synthesis, antithesis and thesis combined, the whole sum of poverty, is this to Steve: _if you want something to last, you must build it with your own hands._

But perhaps more importantly is the contrapositive: _if you do not build it with your own hands, it will never last._

Gifts may be given, mercies may be wrought, and charity may be tithed. But in a world that says “you are nothing without the money to back it up,” none of that matters.

All of it can be taken away by another’s whim. All of it can be gone in a moment.

You can only cherish that which cannot be taken away from you. Only the things that you work for, strive for, yourself can be trusted. There is no gilt lily on this earth sweeter than the knowledge that you are free.

And all mercies have a price.

* * *

“But you gave me - I didn’t - I don’t - please don’t - please don’t say you aren’t happy. Did I do something? Was it me?” Tony asks, not waiting for - or even expecting - an answer. “I don’t want to fuck this up Steve. I care about you so much.”

“I know. I know, and I care about you too Tony. You’re the - you’re very important to me. I am happy with you. I don’t need this,” he gestures at the motorcycle behind Tony, and Tony winces. “I don’t need you to prove anything.”

“Maybe I want to,” Tony said, voice low and fierce. Steve feels a yearning that that might mean something.

* * *

Tony had been courteous, when he found out Steve had bought a small condo with his back pay from the army. Now Steve knows that Tony was hurt. He thought Steve was snubbing the mansion.

Steve loves the mansion. Not because it’s fine, though it is, and not because it’s large, though it is that too, but because Tony is there. Iron Man is there. He sees it - them, really, as the stability he needs for joy to grow.

But he can’t unlearn his lessons so easily. Everything is ephemeral. You never know when disaster will strike. Everyone leaves.

It’s the same desperate need to prepare that made him fill his pockets with bits of rations, making Namor and Toro, who had never learned the lessons, tease him endlessly. Bucky, he thought, might have known. Might have understood. But he didn’t press Steve and for that he would be eternally grateful.

The only thing harder than learning the lessons is trying to explain them to others.

* * *

“You might want to, but that’s not what this is about Tony. It’s not about you -“

“ _It's about me_ , is that what you were going to say? I’ve gotta say, Cap, this is the first time I’ve been broken up with over a motorcycle.” Tony is laughing and joking but Steve knows where to look now, has carefully learned - with his own hands - what fear looks like when it is draped on Tony’s body.

“I’m not breaking up with you,” Steve says, sighing, trying not to let himself shout or explode or fall apart on the ground in front of Tony.

“You won’t - is it really that horrible?” Tony’s voice is so soft, now, so feather soft that Steve is afraid he might lose it. “Am I - are the things I want to give you really that bad?”

Steve shakes his head vehemently. “ _No_. No, Tony. Nothing you do is anything less than beautiful.”

“Then,” Tony starts, reedily, gasping for air. “Then why won’t you let me take care of you.”

“I can’t let myself,” Steve says, his voice just as feather soft as Tony’s was, and Tony throws his hands up in the air and storms out of the garage.

* * *

But Steve loves Tony so much it fills his chest and limbs and makes them feel like they could burst, or float, or maybe something of both. He is so afraid of losing the one thing in the future that feels right, the one thing that has made him think, “maybe surviving the war wasn’t a mistake.”

So, of course, he goes to the one person who knows Tony Stark better than he does.

“Iron Man,” Steve says, knocking at the doorframe of the library.

Iron Man is sitting in his usual armchair, legs kicked up on an ottoman, reading a book Steve doesn’t recognize. He closes it with a snap and sets it down on the table next to him.

“Can I… can I talk to you about something?” Steve asks, afraid for a reason he can’t quite place.

“Sure. Of course,” Iron Man says, stilted and sounding as far from sure as it is possible to be.

“We don’t - if you’re busy -“

“No. Sit. What’s the matter?”

Steve sinks into his chair, elbows on his knees, gaze locked on the carpet beneath his boots.

“Have you ever had something taken away from you?” Steve asks, not sure where the words are coming from.

Iron Man barks out a laugh. “Yeah. Yup. Sure have.”

“Something so precious that it feels like, when you lose it, you won’t be you anymore? Like your chain has been cut from your anchor?”

There is a heavy pause. Steve wonders if Iron Man is being thoughtful or suspicious.

“Yes. Yes, I have.” His voice is faraway, even through the modulator. Steve wonders what, or who, he lost to sound like this.

“How do you - how do you let yourself trust that nothing else will be taken away like that?”

“I… I don’t. Can’t. Not really.” Iron Man sighs, a breathy vibration. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t fight for what I have.”

“But… how do you keep it, whatever you have, without… without deluding yourself that it can last?” Steve now feels like the faraway one.

Iron Man looks at him sharply. “Is this about you and Tony?” He asks, voice eerily careful.

“Yes. No? It’s complicated,” Steve says, smiling ruefully.

“Uncomplicate it,” Iron Man says, a laugh in his voice, but it doesn’t have his usual confidence. He sounds hesitant. Probably worried you’ll break, Steve says to himself, and it doesn’t seem incorrect, as judgments go.

“I’m not afraid of losing him,” Steve says, hearing the certainty of his words. “We built it - us - together, with our hands. We’ll always come back to each other. I’m afraid of…” What is he afraid of?

Iron Man nods slowly, encouragingly, but remains silent.

“I’m afraid that one day he’ll be taken away from me. And I will be left with nothing but my hands, and nothing built from them to hold on to.” Steve looks at his hands; clenches them, unclenches them, reassuring himself that they are there.

Iron Man nods, but Steve isn’t sure that he understands. He forges on anyway.

“I l - I care about him so much. So much it hurts, sometimes. But I can’t - I don’t want to delude myself into thinking everything can last forever. And I don’t want to kindle something false in myself, like the idea that charity is more than pity, or that a gift can ever last.”

He turns to Iron Man, and he sees something like recognition in his eyes, through the sockets.

“If I want something to last, I have to build it with my own hands. Do you see? I have to make it mine, or it will forever be something someone can take away. I don’t want to forget and,” his breath catches in his throat. “I don’t want to forget and be hurt again,” he finishes, quietly.

Iron Man nods, when Steve looks up at him. “I know what that’s like,” he says, his voice dark and distant like a storm cloud, like the shadow of a bomber overhead. “To have… to have… to have things taken away from you. Until it’s just you and your hands and the things you can do with them. Until you have no choice but to build your way out or die.”

Steve nods, gratefully. Iron Man understands. It’s a rush of relief through his body, heady, intoxicating. He doesn’t have to explain. He doesn’t have to see confusion and fear and, worst of all, pity.

“I need… I need to make things right with Tony. I don’t know if he - I don’t think he understands that. I don’t know how to make him understand. I tried, but none of the words came out right.”

“I can… I can explain to him…” Iron Man says, still sounding as if he is speaking to Steve from Jupiter.

“Iron Man - shellhead. That would mean the world to me, but I want to be able to explain this to Tony. I don’t want to - I - I’m not sure what I want. But I know I want Tony to know that I care about him, that he matters to me, and I don’t know how to do that besides with my own hands.”

Iron Man nods, still looking dazed. “I’ll go get Tony, then…” he says, mechanically.

“Sure… sure…” Steve says. “Thank you.”

Iron Man turns to look at him as he rises out of the chair, the swift flick of his chin and the tilt of his head indicating a question.

“It’s nice… it was nice to have someone understand. Without having to explain to them. I don’t - I don’t like explaining this…” Steve waved at himself, between them, all around the room, “stuff. Thank you for listening anyway.”

Iron Man nods, pauses for a long moment in the doorway and then disappears.

* * *

Steve’s not sure Tony will ever understand. Even after their conversation, Steve isn’t very convinced.

When he goes to the kitchen, after his morning jog, it is with intense trepidation that he sees Tony there, waiting for him.

There is a piece of paper in front of him. Steve can’t read it, and although he wants to, he shouldn’t pry. Not when they’re still tender like this.

When Tony slides the paper over to Steve, he tries to read the face Tony gives him, the face he lets Steve see.

When he looks down at the paper, reads it once, and then twice, and comprehension dawning only on the third, he gasps aloud.

He looks up to Tony, whose eyes are soft in the way that they only ever are when they’re looking at Steve. “Tony… I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“You’re pretty bright, Rogers, I’m fairly certain you know your letters.” The words are sardonic but Tony’s voice is full of fondness.

Steve turns back and looks down at the paper again.

**The Last Will and Testament of Anthony Edward Stark**

He glosses over the testator and executor, looking only down at the disposition of property.

Tony was leaving the mansion to him. Tony was leaving - Tony was leaving him a sum of money that was greater than Steve had ever imagined owning.

He looks up at Tony. “I don’t,” he stammers.

“I’ll never leave you. Never. And I would marry you, if it were legal and if it weren’t too fast for your poor romantic heart. But,” Tony swallows, “I can make it so that you will always have a home, and you will always be taken care of. That no one will be able to take this away from you, even if they take me away from you.”

Steve’s eyes widen, widen further than he knew they could. That’s - this is - he’s -

Tony interrupts his thoughts with a grin and a shake of the head. “Stop overthinking this, Steve. If we’re lucky, it’ll never come up and we can live out our retirement here together, you still under my roof.”

Steve - Steve likes the sound of that so much. He nods, throat choked with feelings he cannot name.

“I have another thing, but it’s more of a gift for me than a gift for you. Come with me?” Tony asks, but it’s an invitation and not a question.

* * *

In the workshop is the motorcycle that Tony got for Steve, but broken up into all of its component pieces and scattered over Tony’s basement workshop floor.

“I thought - I know what you said, about building stuff with your own hands. I thought maybe, rather than me giving this to you, that we could… we could build it together?” Tony’s voice is bright with hope.

Steve looks at him. The other gift, the will, it wasn’t a gift for him, really, not a mercy or a charity either. It was for Tony. It was so Tony could feel safe.

This. This is so much more. This is Tony seeing him, seeing all of the ways that poverty has twisted and bent him, and putting an arm under his shoulder, helping Steve walk anyway.

Helping him fly.

There are fat, hot tears running down Steve’s face, now, he realizes distantly. Tony’s saying his name, now. His hands are bunching in Tony’s shirt, now.

And then all at once he rubberbands back into his own skin, back here with Tony in his arms, with Tony whispering kind words in his ears, desperately chanting gratitudes into Tony’s neck.

They stand there for a long time like that, clinging to each other like they’ll collapse if they let go.


End file.
